Abstract
Contemporary and past glacial landforms are common in the higher sections of Turkish mountains. The Eastern Black Sea Mountains, the Taurus, and individual high mountains in Central and Eastern Anatolia contain glacier landforms and landscapes, hosting also actual glaciers. The high mountainous landscapes of these regions are deeply marked by the influence of intense glaciation that occurred approximately 20,000 years ago. These landscapes owe much to karstic processes too. In Eastern Anatolia (Southeastern Taurus), glacier morphological heritage from the Last Glacial and contemporary glaciers concentrates in two main ranges. The first one, located in the Southeastern Turkey between Iraqi and Iranian borders, includes the Buzul (Cilo glaciers) and İkiyaka (Sat glaciers) Mountains. The second one, located to the south of Lake Van, is the İhtiyar Şahap Mountains. Compared to the Buzul and İkiyaka Mountains where contemporary glaciers still cover relatively large areas, glaciers in the İhtiyar Şahap Mountains are much smaller. In the İhtiyar Şahap Mountains, the permanent Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) snowline was 2700 m above sea level (a.s.l.). Today, the snowline has risen so high (3200–3300 m a.s.l.) that young moraine deposits and rock glaciers now cover the cirques of the melting glaciers.
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Doğu, A.F. (2019). Pleistocene Glacier Heritage and Present-Day Glaciers in the Southeastern Taurus (İhtiyar Şahap Mountains). In: Kuzucuoğlu, C., Çiner, A., Kazancı, N. (eds) Landscapes and Landforms of Turkey. World Geomorphological Landscapes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03515-0_21
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